no, i think it's the change from system(CMD, ARGS) back to system(EXPR) that fixed it. die doesn't do anything with a file or directory in that code, so i can't see it being the problem. maybe ActivePerl only likes the monadic (one argument) form of system.

update: i may have figured it out. i think to do it my way, you would have to say 'TIME.EXE' or whatever the full name of the executable is because it isn't passed to COMMAND.COM to be resolved.